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Against Lyon, a great European side, Barca's 3-man forward line had an average age of 20.
Eto'o wasn't quite fit enough yet, Henry's body had finally given out after playing
continuously while not 100% fit, and Ronaldinho was on the bench. Andres Iniesta, 23;
Lionel Messi, 20; and Bojan Krkic, 17, a forward line crafted in the Barca youth
academies, led the line in their stead.
I picked a bad time to be away, didn't I? Events in the past week have been strangely reminiscent
of the 04-05 season: great play, great sense of team spirit, tons of injuries. Perhaps it's a good
omen, as Barca won the title that time, but I hope the squad remember that they did it by sticking
together and working hard through the bad patches.
Here's an amazing statistic: it's been 10 months since we last won 4 in a row.
(graphic swiped from Sport)
Any other team might be pleased to win 3-0 (especially with most players coming off two
international appearances) and gain some distance on our rivals at the top of the table, but as
always, Barca are our own greatest enemy. It feels like forever since I've done one of my rambling,
player-by-player match reports, so here goes.
Barcelona and Spanish attacking midfielder Andres Iniesta reported
to keep stay in Barca team until 2014 after months discussions with president Joan Laporta. Iniesta
will earn 5 million euros per annum and 150 million euros release clause. Iniesta happy with his
new contract, "I've never wanted to leave Barcelona; I want a longer contract, with 2014 the
goal.
Dear Thierry Henry:
I'm sorry I ever thought you had lost your spark forever. I'm glad you play for us.
Dear Yaya Toure:
I'm sorry I doubted your suitability for the defensive midfield position. You have been wonderful.
Get well soon!
Dear Txiki Begiristain:
I was wrong, and I apologize.
It almost seems like there's more news in the off-season than during the actual season itself.
Maybe it's just everybody going transfer crazy, plus all the sacking and hiring going on. Whatever
it is, here's another news round-up, and as usual - no baseless rumours.
Starting at Real Madrid, where despite the lack of an annoucement everyone and their dog knows that
Bernard Schuster of Getafe is going to be unveilled as the next coach soon.
Transfer insanity continues apace, with the rich clubs splashing the cash like there's no tomorrow
and the less rich clubs trading players like a particularly demented version of Wife Swap. If you
speak Spanish, reputable newspaper El Pais has a good list of all the transfer activity so far.
Barcelona
Our 4th and last signing of this transfer window, barring any unforeseeable events, has finally
been officially confirmed: Argentinean central defender Gabriel Alexander Milito is now a Barca
player for a cool 17 million euros, with an additional 3.
Lots of news this time, so little to no commentary.
Barcelona
Rafa Marquez has opted to sit out Mexico's Copa America clash with Uruguay for third place (which
they won 3-1) in order to start preparing for the club season early and make sure that the injury
problems which plagued him in 06-07 don't return.
President Laporta talks about Barca's movements in the transfer market (ignore the headline as
usual from the geniuses at goal.
Maybe I'll write more when the grieving stops. For now, I leave you with only this bit of personal
reflection:
My club: FC Barcelona. My NT: Argentina. Both deeply neurotic and more prone to dramatic
disappointment than uplifting triumph, and I end up pinging from one to the other, seeking solace
from the pain inflicted by one in the temporary bursts of the sublime offered by the other, right
up until the neuroticism strikes again.
For many of the big European leagues, the sweet relief of proper competitive football is just a
week or so away. Unfortunately, La Liga (and Serie A) are taking longer holidays, with almost all
the teams jetting around the world, playing friendlies. Yawn. Thank God, then, for the diverting
prospect of European club competition, with the early rounds of the Champions League, the UEFA Cup
and the Intertoto already under way.
It has gotten to a certain point in both my study semester and the season that my workload means
I'm no longer able to keep up with all that goes on in La Liga. So no more general news round-up
posts until I get the time again. There will be a couple of posts about transfers in general before
the season starts, but I'm reverting to mostly talking about Barca, Argentina and sometimes
Villarreal.
This season is unprecedented in terms of spending: 477 million euros in total, breaking the
previous record of 2000 by quite some distance. And the transfer window's not even closed yet.
Whether all that spending will produce good football and an exciting league remains to be seen. But
hey, it's not my favourite league for nothing, and the season ahead looks insanely exciting.
Excitingly enough, competitive football is back in La Liga. Here's what's been going on ahead of
Barca's opener away against Racing Santander.
squad news
The international break came and went with the fans holding their breath for no further injuries,
and thankfully that's exactly what happened.
Unfortunately, Gabi Milito will not be available for selection for the first game against Racing
Santander, since he has a suspension from last season which will be carried over, thanks to a
yellow card in his last game for Zaragoza which carried him to the five-card threshold.
Barca 2 - 1 SevillaA very important win for Barca, especially given the pre-game celebrations for the 50th birthday of
that beautiful stadium, the Camp Nou.
positives
- Henry looks better with every game. Desperately unlucky for the nth time in front of
goal, but as the man said himself, give him a month to get fitter and used to the team.
Stuttgart 0-2 Barca
A 2-0 away win against the German champions, who hadn't lost at home for 19 games - yeah, I'll take
that. We've never had an easy time in Germany, and this was no different. This result, combined
with Rangers' fantastic win, have left us very well placed in the group.
However, Rijkaard criticized the forward line for being wasteful and hinted that the star
players would have to work harder.
(I've recently taken over the Argentina World Cup Blog, so that's where all Argentina-related posts
will go in the future.)
Atletico were the last team to beat Barca at Camp Nou in the league back in February of
2006. Since then, Barca have gone 30 games undefeated at home, of which 22 were victories. So you
could say that this was a bit of a test.
Oh boy, now that Real Madrid finally have a coach the amount of transfer news is just going to
increase, isn't it? On the plus side, we can all stop talking about the soup opera that was the
hiring process - or at least I will after this post.
Barcelona
The Joan Gamper Trophy, which is Barca's traditional season opener in which we play a friendly
against a big team, preferably from abroad isn't going to be a season opener this time around,
which kind of defeats the purpose of the exercise.
With all the attention paid to AC Milan's Andriy Shevchenko and Barcelona's Ronaldinho
and Samuel Eto'o prior to Tuesday's European Champions League semifinal, Ludovic Giuly barely was
mentioned.
Yet the veteran France forward was the one to beat an offside trap and send a left-footed shot
past Milan goalkeeper Dida in the 57th minute for Barcelona's 1-0 win.
'Tis the season for players to be presented and for coaches to hold press conferences, apparently.
Well, that and increasingly ridiculous transfer speculation. On with the news.
Barcelona
Vice-captain Xavi talks about each of the new signings, the disappointments of last season and
Frank Rijkaard.
The official website has details of the pre-season training camp in Scotland, which won't feature
the players who were involved in the Copa America (Marquez, Messi and Milito).
Quick notes on some of the things that have been on us fans' minds lately, including the tour,
formations (yeah, I've finally jumped on the bandwagon) and the pecking order for the starting
line-up.
Things to take away from the Scottish mini-tour"At Barcelona, full-backs are auxiliary strikers.
It was a weekend that defied predictions as the 3 promoted sides all won at the expense of some of
the bigger teams, Real looked better than expected, Sevilla won but it didn't matter, Barca bored
and Valencia and Atletico bottled it once again.
Barca 0-0 Racing
As a certain Spanish newspaper put it, 'fantastically boring'. Fair play to Marca, it made me
chuckle.
It always pains me to be writing about the departure of a canterano, a player who came up through
the youth system of the club. Thiago (pictured above with fellow canterano Messi and good friend
Ronaldinho) appeared more than 100 times for Barca B before he was promoted to the first team in
2001.
The fact that during 6 seasons in the first team he only managed 138 appearances tells its own
story about his misfortunes.
More news and less commentary today. No silly transfer rumours, as always.
Samuel Eto'o speaks out about racism in football. You know, one of the reasons I was surprised that
Henry came to Barca in the end was the well-known racist behaviour in some Spanish grounds, given
Henry's own high profile anti-racism work. (Also, Goal.com, your headline writers suck.
Don't you love the pre-season? You're free to feel ridiculously optimistic for the season to come,
with hopes and dreams yet to be shattered by the rigours of competitive games, and seeing changes
take effect is always exciting. Here's what's been going on in the last ten days.
Barca
At the beginning of the week, cules received the happy news that every single player had managed to
return from their holiday on time to report for training.
In a move that surprised many people, Barcelona rightback Juliano Belletti has been sold to Chelsea
for 5.5 million euros.
On the Barca end of things, out of the group of players who were said to be expendable (Motta,
Ezquerro and Gudjohnsen being the other names on it), Belletti was the one who would have proved
most useful had he decided to stay.
"Today has been one of the saddest days in the history of Sevilla FC," Del Nido told the club's
official website. "The diamond left-footed player Antonio Puerta has left us, a player that changed
our lives now leaves us."
The man who scored this goal in extra time against Schalke to take Sevilla into their first ever
European final and the last penalty in the shoot-out which won them their second UEFA Cup in 2
seasons has left us.
When I revamped the blog (what do you think, tidier to look at now?), I decided to link to Spanish
sports dailies Marca and (Barcelona-based/biased) El Mundo Deportivo, along with the football
section of El Pais, the big general daily, but not AS or Sport. A blind monkey can see that AS are
in the Barca-baiting business, so there's no sense in a Barcelona-focused blog linking to that, ah,
fine publication (I once saw it referred to as 'reputable Spanish daily AS' and nearly died
laughing) which doesn't at all make up crazy rumours.
A few surprising deals did go through, but I'm sure some clubs lamented the (to them, untimely) end
of the transfer window, most notably Deportivo who were looking to get 3 more players and as far as
I know didn't succeed.
Frankly, based on their opening day performance, I can't blame Miguel Angel Lotina, but surely
somebody at that club realized the malaise there during the long months of the transfer window?
As Ray Hudson said, Barca demonstrated both sides of their personality in this game. The first half
was marked by a return to the wonderful, flowing, quick-passing football that the fans have been
missing for quite some time, while the second half was marked by the constant state of uncertainty
that characterised some games from last season. By that I mean that the players looked like they
didn't know what they were supposed to be doing out there.
Barcelona director of football Txiki Begiristain has stated that the Catalan giants won't break the
bank for Arsenal star Cesc Fabregas.
The Spanish sensation has been one of the most influential players at Arsenal over the past few
seasons, marshaling the midfield at the tender age of 20. Fabregas had never kept it a secret that
he would like to return to Spain at some time in his career, but it now seems as though he may have
to wait seven years for his contract to expire.
Club football is back with a bang with some interesting games in Spain this weekend and the return
of the Champions League midweek, amidst the sound of club coaches grumbling about their charges
returning injured (poor Arjen Robben) or tired.
Internationals
Gabi Milito and Leo Messi scored the goals for Argentina as they beat Venezuela away to
top the qualifying table with 6 points.
For all the hype about Super Sundays in the Premiership, and with apologies to the Milan derby
which is happening on the same day, in my humble opinion there's nothing that quite matches up to
El Clasico, the game of the century, Barca v Real, whatever you want to call it.
Remember what happened at the Camp Nou last season?
I've had to break this up into 4 posts since it's gotten so long. So here's my evaluations of our
first team squad of 22, plus the technical staff and club management. I'll do another post looking
ahead to the Barca squad of next season once all the transfer business is done.
Goalkeepers
Name: Víctor Valdés Arribas
Age: 25
Evaluation: Great season from our young 'keeper.
Continuing on from my last post, in which I covered Barca's goalkeepers and defenders.
Midfielders
Name: Xavier 'Xavi' Hernández Creus
Age: 27
Evaluation: Xavi is one of the leaders of the team and the player who has been in the first team
the longest in the current squad despite his relative youth.
Having lost most of the 05-06 season to injury, he was once again hampered by injury problems this
season, although they were thankfully mostly minor compared to what he went through before.
Last post in this series, dedicated to Barca's many forwards, the technical staff and club
management.
Forwards
Name: Eiður Smári Guðjohnsen
Age: 28
Evaluation: It's hard to say that Gudjohnsen has had a successful season, but at the same time it's
hard for me to blame him for his inability to completely step into the quite large shoes of Samuel
Eto'o.
My take on Argentina v Paraguay will have to wait until I've had time to see the game again, but
meanwhile here's the latest on the shenanigans of La Liga's clubs, most of whom have gone transfer
crazy. A Barca, Real and Sevilla heavy round-up this time around.
Barcelona
The first story isn't transfer related at all, surprisingly.
Barcelona played their traditional season opener friendly against a Inter team missing most of
their big stars. I could complain about that, and about the dubious scheduling of this match, but
that's a matter for another post. This post is dedicated to the spirit of the evening, which was to
honour the lives of former club vice-president Nicolau Casaus, who died earlier in the month, and
Sevilla player Antonio Puerta, who died a few days ago.
Barca are obviously Spain's crisis club, having drawn their first game away, a horrifying fate that
has surely -
Oh for God's sake. Dictionary definition of 'leaping to conclusions', anyone?
Barca 5-0 Inter Reserves (Joan Gamper Trophy)
El Mundo Deportivo called Inter 'tourists', which is harsh but true, and who can blame the Italians
with an important league fixture to come in the weekend?
Anelka has signed a 4 year contract extension to stay on Sammy Lee's side:
Bolton chalked up their first win of the season at the weekend by beating Reading with Anelka
making it three goals in four games.
He said: "I seem to have been linked with every club in the country of late but my heart is with
Bolton.
"I am very happy with my form, the club and the manager so signing a new contract was not a
difficult decision.
The so-called 'FIFA virus' strikes again. Personally, I've got nothing against international
football - in fact, I love it - but I just wish the federations and FIFA would schedule things a
bit better. It's unfortunate that this international break comes two weeks into the La Liga (and
Serie A) season. 14 Barca players have been called up this time:
friendies
Ronaldinho (Brazil, vs Mexico and USA)
Giovani dso Santos (Mexico, vs Panama and Brazil)
Gabi Milito and Leo Messi (Argentina, vs Australia)
competitive matches
Xavi and Iniesta (Spain, Euro 08 qualifiers vs Iceland and Latvia)
Lilian Thuram, Eric Abidal and Thierry Henry (France, Euro 08 qualifiers vs Italy and Scotland)
Gianluca Zambrotta (Italy, Euro 08 qualifiers vs France and Ukraine)
Eidur Gudjohnsen (Iceland, Euro 08 qualifiers vs Spain and Northern Ireland)
Deco (Portugal, Euro 08 qualifiers vs Poland and Serbia)
Yaya Toure (Ivory Coast, African Nations Cup qualifier, Gabon)
Samuel Eto'o had his operation, and it was apparently a success.
